Short Interest in Tidewater Inc. (NYSE:TDW) Drops By 15.9%

Tidewater Inc. (NYSE:TDW) saw a large drop in short interest in the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,130,000 shares, a drop of 15.9% from the August 31st total of 4,910,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 839,400 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.9 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Sage Mountain Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Tidewater by 4.8% in the 2nd quarter. Sage Mountain Advisors LLC now owns 2,636 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock valued at $251,000 after acquiring an additional 120 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its position in Tidewater by 135.4% in the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 266 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 153 shares in the last quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. increased its stake in Tidewater by 71.6% in the 4th quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 374 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 156 shares during the last quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC lifted its position in Tidewater by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC now owns 26,520 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $2,525,000 after buying an additional 174 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Precision Wealth Strategies LLC boosted its stake in shares of Tidewater by 8.5% during the 4th quarter. Precision Wealth Strategies LLC now owns 3,376 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $243,000 after buying an additional 264 shares during the last quarter. 95.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Tidewater Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:TDW opened at $71.79 on Monday. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $84.45 and its 200 day simple moving average is $92.81. Tidewater has a fifty-two week low of $54.53 and a fifty-two week high of $111.42. The company has a market capitalization of $3.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.60 and a beta of 1.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.56, a current ratio of 1.90 and a quick ratio of 1.82.

Tidewater (NYSE:TDW) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The oil and gas company reported $0.94 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.72 by $0.22. Tidewater had a net margin of 12.77% and a return on equity of 18.04%. The company had revenue of $339.20 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $331.85 million. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.46 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 57.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Tidewater will post 4.4 earnings per share for the current year.

Tidewater declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback plan on Tuesday, August 6th that authorizes the company to repurchase $13.90 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the oil and gas company to buy up to 0.3% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have weighed in on the company. Raymond James boosted their price objective on Tidewater from $133.00 to $138.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 8th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Tidewater from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 11th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Tidewater currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $111.25.

About Tidewater

Tidewater Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides offshore support vessels and marine support services to the offshore energy industry through the operation of a fleet of marine service vessels worldwide. It provides services in support of offshore oil and gas exploration, field development, and production, as well as windfarm development and maintenance, including towing of and anchor handling for mobile offshore drilling units; transporting supplies and personnel necessary to sustain drilling, workover, and production activities; offshore construction, and seismic and subsea support; geotechnical survey support for windfarm construction; and various specialized services, such as pipe and cable laying.